On Mary’s Mountain

Only a few minutes after the white smoke began rushing out of the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday March 13th, scores of seminarians at Mount St. Mary’s came rushing to the rec room to watch the events transpiring in the Vatican’s grand piazza. The looks of excitement, joy, and expectation on the faces of the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square was equaled by the spontaneous joy and anticipation that filled the rec room at America’s largest seminary in Emmitsburg, MD. By the time of the official “Habemus Papam” announcement, a great majority of the community gathered to await the initial address of the new pope. Along with the rest of the Church, immediately after the new pope’s identity was revealed, the seminarians began frantically searching for information about the new Sovereign Pontiff. After learning of the imitable pastoral qualities of the new Pope Francis, the seminary has joined the Universal Church in rejoicing at the election of such a worthy man to the See of St. Peter as the 266th pope in the Church’s history.